Administrative Stuff

Well-crafted new garage doors can go a long way towards solving the garage problem.

Most basic garage doors are homely. We have grown used to them, but face it, it is usually the garage that is the ugliest part of the house.

A few houses are sufficiently ugly that this is not true, but on this website I will try to maintain forward progress. A relatively easy solution is to install new garage doors carefully chosen to give the garage as pleasant an appearance as the rest of the house.

There are some companies that try to do that very thing. I will present some garages that take advantage of these products.

In other cases there may need to be a custom solution. While a clever handy man can probably handle such a transformation, it is still a good idea to work with somebody who has experience with installing new garage doors. Any façade added to the door brings concerns about clearances and additional loads on the equipment.

Here are four strategies for making your garage door look nice.

Subdue: A relatively inexpensive solution is to subdue the garage entry to the other elements of the house. When the garage is dominant you need to make it appear less so and to highlight other areas, to draw your eye away from the garage and toward the entry or some other area of appeal.

Enhance: Another option is to embrace that it is a garage, but make it look like it is an awesome garage. The garage will still be a focal point, so it is important to make sure the garage door complements the rest of the house. This is an excellent option with contemporary or modernist houses where there is less expectation of what the house is supposed to look like.

Conceal: One option is to hide the fact that it is a garage door at all. Take advantage of camouflage to make it look like the side of the house, or something else entirely different. The danger here is if the camouflage job looks rinky-dink it may attract attention rather than deflecting it. This is probably the most expensive option, unless you can achieve the effect with a fancy paint job.

Deceive: A combination of Concealing and Enhancing is to use camouflage that doesn’t hide the fact that it is a garage, but makes the doors look like some other kind of doors, such as carriage house doors. (Or French patio doors or barn doors or whatever). You are still leading with the garage, but by breaking the surface to give the appearance of several smaller doors, the garage doesn’t seem as massive and dominating. The overall effect is friendlier and certainly more entertaining to the eye.